The coldest place I know!

As promised, I wanted to share a song about the coldest place I know...Antarctica!









As a music therapist in a public school system, I incorporate music to help the students learn many things. There's social skills, social-emotional skills, fine motor skills, functional skills and of course cognitive and academic skills.

Today's post focuses more on the academic skills and helping children learn in social studies. Many of the middle school classrooms I work with studied Antarctica and I put together a song to help them learn the many different things about Antarctica that their teachers wanted to teach them.

So, in order to teach about Antarctica, you might as well go ahead and introduce/review the 7 continents. So, today you will get to hear a song about Antarctica, AND a song about the 7 continents too!


Both songs were written with a repeating Chorus so that nonverbal students could participate with the use of a voice output device or Big Mac switch. I pre-record the chorus before my sessions so that they will be ready to use.
I also designed power points to represent the songs visually.

With the 7 continents song, we use our fingers and count out 7 continents each time the chorus is sung. When we sing about the oceans, we make wave movements with our hands and arms. When we sing about the continents being large, we sign for big. Adding movements to the song really does help the students remember the vocabulary and content of the song!

In several of the classrooms we taught the sign for "Cold" also, as this is the most important part of learning about Antarctica...it's COLD!

So, here it is! The lyrics are below each one so you can follow along.



Chorus: There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Continents (Repeat)

The oceans run between them with their waters deep and blue. (Repeat)
(Chorus)
The continents are large, great masses of land. (Repeat)
(Chorus)



Chorus: Antarctica is a continent. It's the coldest place we know.
It's covered by sheets of ice and lots and lots of snow. (Repeat)

Antarctica is the southernmost continent. It's surrounded by 3 oceans, you see. (Repeat)

(Chorus)

Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent.
Ice and snow cover most of the land.
Frozen rivers of ice called glaciers move across the continent. (Repeat)

(Chorus)

There are no trees in Antarctica.
Only the simplest plants like moss grow there. (Repeat)

(Chorus)

No one lives in Antarctica. Some people visit the continent.
Scientists visit to study the continent's water, land and weather. (Repeat)

(Chorus)

Antarctica is home to many animals that can live in cold climates. (Repeat)

(Chorus)


Well, that's it for today's post. This month we're learning about Australia, so stay tuned for a post about that later this month.
Have a great day!